I found this book interesting. I must admit that I'm not well-informed when it comes to economic policy. I know where I stand on the major issues, but really have no idea how the government is supposed to fund all the things I "want" without just raising taxes. This book presents a case for much-needed reform in US politics and explains the author's ideas for how to bring us up to par with other developed countries who take much better care of their citizens (better and more affordable healthcare, better retirement, and just overall better well-being) and more importantly how our government can feasibly afford to make these necessary changes. Because let's face it, the status quo is kind of a sh*tshow. I'm not sure I have any faith at all that this could ever actually happen, given how divided this country is, but Cooper presents a nice fantasy.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the advanced e-copy in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

How Are You Going to Pay for That? by Ryan Cooper is not the book you think it is. Neither the deficit hawk fighting social spending nor the moderate balance book for some additional government programs, this book describes a theory of economics that integrates the government far more into the market than is normally considered, provides a history of financial thinking in the US, and proposes an agenda that in the US would be described as beyond progressive featuring very significant environmental investment, universal nationalized/single-payer healthcare, and a much greater welfare and wealth redistribution system. Honestly, I don’t feel that I have the economics background to evaluate this book fairly. I don’t expect this book to get much attention because in that area, it does get into some qualitative weeds. The economic history that comprises half of this book uses a quite Marxist lens, though it remains readable. The policy half of this book however is much less thought-through. The author would go on about how getting a massive social spending passed would “simply” require political cooperation from most factions of society and mass movements to do so. Okay buddy if getting that were so simple, the news wouldn’t be so depressing to everyone. He opined optimism about the current administration’s ability to get big social programs passed, though I don’t really get why given the news for the last year again. Then came some comments about how well government functions when they run big departments, which everyone can surely attest to when they had to get absolutely anything done at federal offices which are only open for the barest hours during the working week. In addition, he would often go vague on specifics such as which taxes he would raise to pay for things, ironic based on the title, just saying he’s “not qualified to specify.” This just seemed strange given that he felt so confident speaking about economics and other more seemingly complex topics in the same area. For me, the wild optimism and lack of specifics in key areas made the second half of the book, where the meat of the policy discussion occurred, fall flat for me; this ultimately translated into a disappointment for me overall.

The author makes a lot of interesting points about the way that the economy affects the country. The connection between the economy and the COVID 19 pandemic is incredibly timely. However, I believe this would have been better marketed as an economics book as opposed to a political book. It’s quite dense at points and unless you have extensive eco inc knowledge (and also interest) this may not be the easiest book to just pick up.

How Are You Going to Pay for That by Ryan Cooper was received directly from the publisher and I chose to review it. The question, in regards to unfettered spending by politicians, seemed straight forward enough. What caught my attention right off the bat about this book was the authors off base, subjective thoughts on right vs left in politics, thus the overall rating. The author further believes individual monies taken via taxes never were the property of the individual, those monies legally belonged to the collective. Hopefully the next book I read is actually about out of control spending by politicians that is written by a middle of the road person good at math.

2 Stars